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It’s a new year but we haven’t locked the door on 2014 — it’s propped open by an old specimen book. Before we release our next typeface, we wanted to recap what came in the past twelve months. Five different designers were behind seven releases, and all of their designs, along with some classics from our library, came out on Webtype too. It was a varied year, so let’s take another look.

Using the wrong typography terms doesn’t just make you look silly or inexperienced; it doesn’t just irritate the nitpicky nerds; it deprives you from getting the most from typography. Knowing the right words can help you understand and describe, design and build. So here are some of the commonly confused typographic terms I see tossed around, along with simplified definitions.

Today we release FB Big Caslon, six new styles of Matthew Carter’s familiar and beloved typeface. 20 years ago Big Caslon was released as a single style, with separate fonts for small caps, expert and alternate characters. Now it is a fully-featured Opentype family, simultaneously available as webfonts, in three weights. They each have italics, small caps, and plenty of striking alternates.

Today we release Input—fonts for code. Input is a flexible system of fonts designed specifically for code by David Jonathan Ross. It offers both monospaced and proportional fonts, all with a large range of widths, weights, and styles for rich code formatting.